The upgrade comes as the United States and other partners back a separate westward rail corridor linking Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to the Atlantic Ocean.
Chinese Premier Li Qiang attended the ground-breaking ceremony in Zambia, where President Hakainde Hichilema hailed the investment.
"We don't see TAZARA as just a rail line... we see TAZARA as an economic corridor," said Hichilema, referring to the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority.
Beijing has committed around $1.4 billion to revive the roughly 1,860-kilometre (1,155-mile) line built by China in the 1970s to transport critical minerals from Zambia's Copperbelt to the coast via Tanzania.
China is among Africa's largest trading partners and has sought to tap the continent's natural resources including copper, gold, lithium and rare earth minerals.
It is also Zambia's leading creditor and holds huge stakes in its mining sector.
Zambia is the second-biggest producer of copper in Africa after the DRC, and the seventh-largest producer in the world.
The work would take around three years and include upgrading the line, procuring more than 800 new locomotives and constructing bridges and tunnels, a representative of the China Railway Corporation said.
It would increase freight volumes to 2.4 million tonnes per year, the official said.
The concession will run for 28 years before operations are handed over to Zambia and Tanzania.
A separate railway linking inland mines to the Atlantic Ocean involves major development at the Angolan port of Lobito.
It has received financing from the United States, the European Union and others to rehabilitate a railway connecting the mineral-rich DRC and Zambia with Lobito.
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